Daydream
by littleblackdress1
Summary: It's 1975 Britain and the wizarding world is changing. Tells the story of the extraordinary bunch of teenagers that grew up to influence Harry and his friends. Lily and James try as hard as they can to keep their lives and friends together as Voldemort an
1. Frank Sinatra

Chapter One, Frank Sinatra

Snow was drifting past the window lazily. It brushed against the cold, archaic stone before falling in whispers to join its contemporaries on the ground. Paper snowflakes were taped to the thin glass panes of the gothic edged windows. They were too thin, really. They made the room cold when the fire was out.

But the girls hadn't noticed. They were dancing around half naked, singing old Beatles hits of their childhoods. Lily had spent months bewitching her record player to work, and she had brought her whole collection with her at the start of term. Now Alice, Linda and Alectai were enjoying them with her. Patty had gone home for the holidays.

It was the last day of fall term. The train had gone (there were a few tearful goodbyes when Patty got on the train), the last presents to family and friends back home had been sent off, and schoolbags had been shoved beneath beds, to be resurrected in January.

The four sixth year Hogwarts girls were delighted that Alectai's brother had sent her a large bottle of rum from his stay in Jamaica. It was being put to good use. As was the bag of marijuana he had also sent, but she was the only one brave enough to try it.

Linda and Lily disapproved but said nothing, for fear of being thought prudes. It was 1975, of course, everyone was doing it, but girls took into stride the horror stories their mothers had told them about what smoking could do to someone.

Patty was the one who would have said something about it, but she was gone. That was why Alectai had chosen not to break it out until she had left.

Alectai was wild, and they let her have her fun. In moderation, of course, because she needed a little governance. Even still, the mothering attention of her friends hadn't kept her from sleeping with every boy she dated and trying every drug she was offered. She was partners in crime with Sirius Black, and their friends-with-benefits approach of one another kept him the lives of the other girls.

"Can you at least open the window, Ally? That stuff stinks." Alice said.

She was spread out on her bed reading a magazine, while the other girls were dancing around Lily's record player. After their last class the girls had gone up to the tower and pulled on sleep shirts and boxer shorts and put on music. Alice was lying on her stomach with her legs sticking up in the air. Her thick brown hair was tied up, making her round face seem slimmer.

"No, it's freezin' out there." Alectai said, twisting her long black hair up into a ponytail with one hand, careful not to alight her hair with the joint in her hand. She adjusted the tick leather bracelet on her arm and smirked at Alice.

"Then put it out, it just isn't right." Alice said, ripping a page out of her magazine. She pulled a roll of Spellotape out of her nightstand and fixed it above her bed. It joined other cut outs of Robert Redford and John Travolta.

"Don't think you're one to be lecturing on morals, Liss," Alactai said lightly. "Least not when you're out shagging Frank Longbottom every weekend."

"There are worse things I could do." Alice replied plainly, sitting back down on her bed.

"Like smoking this?" Alectai said, gesturing to the joint in her hand, but she put it out anyway.

The fact that Alice slept with Frank was something that the girls just didn't talk about. Only "fast" girls did things like that, and Alice wasn't like that. It was fine for Alectai, who had "abandonment problems" and kept it quiet, but Alice came back from her midnight indiscretions sloppily and loudly. She would bang into the room drunk and smelling of smoke, with tears running down her face and trying to be quiet. Patty, who was a light sleeper, would sit up with her in the bathroom, holding her hair back when she threw up and then cleaning her face of makeup before putting her to sleep, always with a trashcan next to the bed.

There was a momentary silence.

The girls had been friends since the first day, when they arrived in the room together and had nothing to say. Alectai and Linda were loud, getting the others to introduce themselves, hating the silence they thought might be imposed on them.

Patty and Alice were quieter, but they soon came out of their shells.

It was Lily who didn't speak at all. She was feeling overwhelmed and anxious, the little muggle girl who didn't know anything.

They had come a long way since then. They had, respectively, become themselves.

Alectai was the wild one, who had all of the money and all of the boys and none of the kindness from the parents she hardly knew. She was beautiful with her deep blue eyes and long black hair, and she knew only in her future that she wanted to get out of where she was. It was only natural that she had been drawn to Sirius, he was the only one who could challenge her spirit but still understand her. He also understood what it was like to be ignored. That, on the whole, was worse than all of the pressure and mistreatment they had ever felt from their parents.

Linda, or Rosalinde, was the Hollywood baby. She was an American from California, and spent most of her time changing other people's hair colors. She had lustrous gold hair that fell to her waist in waves that she liked to straighten. Her light blue eyes saw only for Sam Faktorow, a Hufflepuff that her older sister had set her up with. She was well provided for by her middle-class parents. The Chalek's had seen three daughters through Hogwarts, and her little brother Damien was set to follow through the next year.

Patty was the artist. She had short curly dark hair and liked to spend her time holed up in a little alcove with a bench and a window in the Hogwarts common room with some paints and a canvas. Her older sister Nancy was a seventh year, and she spent much of her time with her and her friends.

Alice wasn't the anything, really. She was pretty, with her thick hair and curvy figure, but the boys at Hogwarts didn't quite go for girls like her, she wasn't what they would call remarkable; in spite of her perpetual kindness. She had loving parents and a nice family and got good marks and it was anyone's guess why she slept with Frank Longbottom, since she never did anything else disreputable.

Lastly was Lily. She had brains and beauty, her friends said. What she lacked in "proper" heritage she made up for with charm, smarts and sass. She was pretty, yes, but she lacked Alectai's striking beauty or Alice's serene grace. Her hair was long and auburn and fell past her shoulders in curls. But the eyes were what made her stand out. They were large and green, with a piercing stare. Lily was everyone's sweetheart; they loved her. Everyone's…but James'. But that was another story.

"Bugger off Peter, this is important." Sirius said, giving the smaller boy to his left a bit too hard of a shove. He stumbled and caught his balance on the mahogany doorframe, still anxious to come on his mates' adventure.

"Don't go with them, Peter, you'll just end up freezing your arse off while they serenade girls." Remus said from his bed without looking up from his book. Peter looked across the room at his for an encouraging look, but Remus remained in his own world.

"Is that really what you're doing? You're going to go sing to the girls?" Peter asked excitedly, sweeping some whispery blond hair off of his sweaty forehead.

"No," Sirius said shortly. "We're singing to the mergirls down at the lake. You'd be frightened. Don't come."

Peter was afraid of water and believed them.

"Oy, will yea stop lyin' to 'im?" Frank asked, sliding on his coat and pulling a mommy-made scarf around his neck. "They're goin' go sing to Lily and Alectai." Frank's Lancashire accent set him off from the other four, who were from Southern England.

James closed his eyes and inhaled angrily.

"What makes you think _you're_ coming?" he burst out, pulling on the gloves his father had sent him as an early Christmas present.

"Why _shouldn't_ I come? I could jus' as well go tell McGonagall on you, and then where would you be?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sirius, who was planning on going out wearing nothing but a silk top hat, was checking himself in the mirror next to the door. He brushed his dark hair to the side and made sure the hat was cocked just right. He turn back to the rest of the room and pointed to Frank and then Peter.

"Fine, _you_ can come, but Peter's staying here with Remmy. We can't risk having an incident like last Halloween."

"I _told_ you, that wasn't my fault! The stupid armor was suicidal, it tipped itself over! _Please_ let me come!" Peter pleaded, putting his hands together.

But Peter was left with Remus, who was told to watch him while the rest of the boys had their fun.

Sirius had stashed a pair of knickers in James' coat pocket for the trip back up to the dormitory, but was striding nakedly on through the Hogwarts corridors to the Entrance Hall.

When the boys were outside, everything was quiet. The snow had deadened all sounds but Sirius's loud cursing at the cold.

"So where's their room?" Frank asked, pulling a toffee out of his pocket and popping it in his mouth. Frank was famous for his candy supply and his charm. He kept large stashes of various sweets in concealed places in the boys dormitory, all away from Sirius's prying eyes. He was charming and handsome, although he could never rival James' smile or Sirius's dashing good looks. He lived in a drafty old mansion with his overbearing mother in the north of England. His father and two older brothers had been killed by Voldemort just before Frank started at Hogwarts, but it was Christmas and not time to speak of such things. He wasn't part of the other boys' gang, and he liked it that way. He preferred time with his Ravenclaw friends, but they were all home for the holiday, and his Gryffindor friends were an alright subsititute.

Sirius trudged along beside him, muttering "bugger" and "fuck" under his breath at random intervals. Sirius had all of the girls, all but Alectai de Salem, who would always be too good for him. He loved her, of course, any man would, but she was too frightening to really get close to in that way. She had grown up in a family like his, although her parents were Ravenclaws all the way back, not Slytherins. He would never make a _commitment_ to her, no, of course not. He was just going along with his mates to impress the girlies he loved so dearly. There was nothing like the Hogwarts sixth year girls, who all put themselves above him and his glamour.

James, of course, was there for obvious reasons. Lily was the one girl who had always resisted him, making her that much more attractive. She wasn't the sort of girl he would usually go for, she was too smart and lacked the outgoing nature and supreme beauty of other girls that he'd had.

"This one." James said, discreetly consulting Moony's map. They had stopped in front of the Gryffindor tower. Seven stories up was the girls' window.

"All ready?" Sirius, asked, pointing his wand (stashed in James's pocket, don't worry) to his throat and muttering _Sonorus_. The two other boys did the same, and James magicked a snowball to hit the girls' window.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Linda asked from the girls' bathroom. The music had been turned down and the girls were readying themselves for bed. Lily was wearing a flannel plaid nightshirt that had been her father's and was toweling off her hair. Alice had slid into a paisley bathrobe and was setting her hair in bobby pins. Alectai was wearing her normal lingerie and Linda was brushing her teeth wearing normal pajamas.

Lily went to the window and looked out. She saw nothing, but one of the paper snowflakes Patty had strung up had been dislodged and was now resting on one of the throw pillows on the sill. Lily shook her head and threw her towel to Linda, who hung it up on the shower rod.

The bathroom light was turned off and the four girls slipped into bed. Another_ whump_ came at the window closest to Lily's bed and she sprang up, cursing loudly. She threw open the window and ducked just in time to narrowly avoid snow to the face.

On the ground, James signaled to his mates and they burst into song, James leading and the other boys backing him up.

"I…don't want much for Christmas. There is just one thing I need," James sang, smiling and pointing up to Lily. She scoffed and slammed the windows shut, but the other girls, hearing the commotion, all got up and went to the window. Lily was pushed the front and Alectai and Linda giggled while Lily and Alice remained silent, watching the boys far below them.

"I don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need."

Linda gaped at Lily. "Aw, Lil, how come you never told you never told us James sings like a British Frank Sinatra?"

"Not hardly." Lily replied stonily.

"Oh, I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree. I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know…"

"Look!" Alectai pointed, laughing. "Black's all in his starkers!" she and Linda giggled and shrieked. Sirius, clearly egged on by this, began to sing with considerably more gusto.

"Make my dreams come truuuueeee! Baby all I want for Christmas is YOU!" James was pointing up at Lily, smiling. Linda and Alectai smiled and clapped. The boys bowed and whooped, except for Frank, who was merely standing there watching them.

Lily pulled the windows shut and huffed into her bed. Linda and Alectai looked at her wonderingly.

"Lily Honour Evans," Alectai said, shaking her head. "I just don't understand how you can just ignore the kind of boy that will come to your window and sing to you at night."

"Easy," Lily said. "He's awful."

The lights were turned off and when the door slammed no one had notice that Alice had been gone the whole time.


	2. Our Boys

Chapter Two, Our Boys

Once the last remnants of Christmas dinner had been cleared away, Dumbledore give them the wink, and the last stragglers wandered off. The boys joined up with the girls, talking.

When she noticed James angling to be near her, Lily excused herself to go exploring. She was known for it; Lily loved to wander around the castle, often finding new and exciting places.

As their voices disappeared, she pulled her sweater tighter around herself, the castle was colder farther away from the more used areas. Lily walked through the coridor of the unused classrooms of the first floor, coming to the familiar polished marble staircase behind a blank green tapestry.

She had examined the tapestry before, wondering if there was something about it that she was missing; something more. But she couldn't catch anything, not even running her hands over the unbelievably smooth fabric.

She disappeared behind the tapestry, sitting on the smooth, cold steps. Her cheeks in her hands. Where was he?

V

Alice also pulled off from the group.

"I need to go to the library," she said shortly. "I left my sweater there this morning."

"You were with us all this morning, Ally. We went skating--" Alectai said, confused.

"I NEED to go to the LIBRARY." Alice said again, running her fingers through her hair impatiently.

"_Oh_." Alectai got it when she realized that Frank had disappeared. "Right."

Alice shook her head and watched them leave, Sirius telling a joke. He and Alectai were walking behind the group, and he took her hand when the others couldn't see.

Alectai turned back to her friend. "I hope you get some, girlie!" she mouthed. Alice turned and walked in the opposite direction, her hands shaking.

She did meet Frank at the library, actually. Madam Pince had locked the doors while she was at the feast, but Frank was sitting outside when she got there. He smiled wide when he saw her, as he always did. He pulled her into a tight embrace, surprising her.

"I was startin' ta think you'd forgot me." he smiled. Alice shook her head, expressionless.

"Alectai was being difficult."

"Well, good to know that lass in't changin." She didn't smile, didn't look at him, and he didn't know what to do with her. He pulled a tiny package out of his pocket, and they started walking.

"I got this for you." confused, Alice took it from his outstretched palm.

"What is it?" she asked, looking up at him. He laughed.

"You'll know when you open it," he said, giving her a tiny nudge. He watched her turn it over and over in her hands.

Alice tucked it into the pocket of her jeans.

"You won't open it?" he asked, his face falling.

"I will."

They walked in silence, his throat choked up. He had wanted so badly to surprise her. He loved her…maybe. He didn't know if it was love. He had never had anyone to instruct him on matters like that. He had so carefully picked out her present, spending months going through catalogs, trying to find the perfect thing.

"What is it for?" she asked suddenly. Frank looked at her. She wasn't looking at him, only looking straight ahead at the corridor they were walking into. "Christmas present?"

He nodded. She looked _so pretty_ in her soft lavender sweater. "And…to say thank-you."

"Thank you? For what?" she raised an eyebrow

"For…this. You know. What we're doin'. I like it."

Alice nodded. "I see."

They walked in silence.

They turned into a tiny alcove and stopped. Gargoyles leered at them, and Alice shivered; she was freezing. This was their place. It was one of the space bedrooms used for guests to the castle. It wasn't exactly a secret, but it wasn't too well known, which had kept them from ever being discovered in the act. The room itself was beautiful. Rich, red wooden paneling and a big squishy bed. There was a wide bay window on the opposite window from the bed, with a little curved table under it.

Frank shut the door behind him and gently slid a hand up Alice's sweater…

V

When it was over, they didn't look at each other. Alice was sitting with her legs hugged to her chest, pressed up against the wall. She was _freezing_.

"So," she said quietly. "Was that the worst shag you've ever had?"

Frank looked at her, a lump rising in his throat of her being so defeated looking.

"Well, at least now I can say that the shiverin' thing, while being vibrate-ey, is not sexy."

She looked at him. "How was that even a question?"

Frank shrugged. "You don't know 'till you know."

Alice suddenly jumped out of bed and started dressing. Her back to him, pulled on her thin white underwear and lacy pink bra. (She had never had matching underwear like Alectai did.) Frank looked at her and sighed. She always got like this, unless she was drunk. He sometimes brought a little lemon vodka or some peach schnapps with him on their excursions. He loved getting her drunk. He loved drunk Alice. When she was drunk, she would talk to him during sex, and smile and laugh. And when they were done she would curl up in his arms and lay her head on his chest. He often wondered what could be better than that. She would let him kiss her then, which she never let him do when she was sober. Alice was a wonderful kisser; warm and patient and inviting.

He loved that she would let him touch her when she was drunk. He _loved_ that. Usually she stiffened to his touch. When she was drunk he could let his hands roam when they were kissing; touch her breasts and run his hands through her silky hair.

But the best was that she would talk to him, really _talk_. About how plain and ordinary she often felt, and how she thought she was the sparrow amongst her group of hummingbird friends. Never as beautiful, never as confident or quick. And didn't know how to get away fast enough.

Frank could talk to her, and did. He told her how lonely he often felt, and how she made him feel better. If he was drunk, too, he would tell her how much he loved her. They never talked like that when they were sober. Frank often wondered if she remembered anything that happened in her drunken state when she was completely coherent.

She didn't act like it.

"Alice?" he was making little whorls with his finger on the smooth satin bedspread.

"Yes, Frank?"

"Please come back to bed."

Alice sucked in her stomach so that she could button her jeans and ignored Frank.

"You know I can't." she said plainly, avoiding his gaze.

"But _why_?" he asked loudly. "You _always_ do this! Always! And it's holidays. You don't have homework or a package to send or need to wash your hair, and your friends are off getting smashed and won't be looking for you for hours. _Please_. Just stay the night with me."

She merely shook her head. Her hair was falling out of the knot she had tied it up in and it was driving him crazy. _She_ was driving him crazy. He wanted to touch her, kiss her, talk to her. He slowly got out of the bed, dragging the sheet to the floor, and pulled on his boxers for the sake of modesty. Alice was looking at him and he reached out to her and pulled her down onto the bed, where they lay looking at each other.

Frank smoothed her hair with his hand.

"Open up to me, Alice." he kissed her, slow and soft, until she roughly pushed him away and leaped away from him.

"Don't _ever_ kiss me, Frank! I told you _never_ to kiss me!" she yelled angrily, making for the door.

"Alice! Stop!" Frank yelled suddenly, so loudly that she snapped to attention, her hand already on the brass handle.

"Please--please, just open your gift." He said pleadingly. He picked up his wand from the bedside table and waved the small package over to her.

"No, Frank, I will not accept that!" she said angrily.

"What? Why--?"

"Because, I'm not your prostitute!" she left the room crying, the door swung wide open. Alice meant to run away, but all she got as a few feet before she sank down against the cold stone, sobbing.

He didn't love, her not really, she thought. She just wasn't that sort of girl, the kind that could be loved by someone like Frank. He was brilliant, strong, handsome and kind, a truly good person. But Alice…she just didn't have that sparkle. She didn't have that sparkle, didn't have what it took to really capture the attention of a boy like him. Her friends did, but not Alice…

V

Lily had been waiting by herself for forty-five minutes. Where _was _he? It was their anniversary, even. Well, a little bit. One year, if you could consider it a relationship. But he had mentioned it to her, so he had remembered.

They had met a year before. He had been sitting quietly in a little alcove under a window, scribbling in a little notebook. She had fallen quite head over heals on top of him, causing her to shriek and him to cut himself with the sharp edge of his quill. She had made a right state of herself trying to patch him up, and they had gotten to talking. Well, she had talked, mostly, at first. She talked about how she felt out of place most of the time, among her "real" witch friends, when she was only half a one.

But eventually, he opened up. It took a long time, he was shy and often felt awkward around the beautiful, desirable Lily Evans. But he came to talk, and she listened. He was an only child, and his parents fought--constantly. His friends were cold and failed to understand…anything.

Lily signed and stood up, ready to leave. She took one last look up the winding stairs, hoping to maybe see him. But no.

Theirs had been an improbable relationship at best. They were so different.

Lily adjusted the strap of her bra--she had narrow shoulders and it was always falling--and felt another hand tap her shoulder softly.

She turned around and smiled briefly before his lips closed on hers. A deep giggle went through her chest and she slid a hand through his thick black hair. She loved the way he smelled, like cinnamon and pine sap.

They pulled apart and he held her for a long time.

"You didn't think I was coming." he said softly into her hair.

"Well, I waited for almost an hour. You didn't leave a note or…"

"I got held up." he said, smiling slyly.

"What's that smile for?" Lily asked warily. He smiled wider.

"_I'm_ not telling."

"But I _know_ that smile!" she laughed and started to tickle him."C'mon! What is it?"

They both began to laugh.

"Sev! Tell me!" she protested loudly.

The pair suddenly heard another voice and they ran around a corner, laughing silently.

Lily and Sev were, of course, never meant to be. She was pretty and popular and a Gryffindor, and he was quiet and sulky and a Slytherin. But they could talk, and both of them were quite fond of the benefits that went along with relationships. And, all in all, they weren't _really_ that different, anyway.

"Come on, doll, we're going someplace." he said to her quietly.


End file.
